


The Broken Bits of Ianto Jones

by qthelights



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Episode: s01e04 Cyberwoman, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-12
Updated: 2008-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-30 07:05:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qthelights/pseuds/qthelights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events with the cyberwoman, Jack goes to check on Ianto.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Broken Bits of Ianto Jones

At first Jack thought he must have the wrong door. Perhaps he was about to burst in on some little old welsh lady having her dinner in front of the tele and Coronation Street.

When he hadn’t received an answer to his polite, and then more insistent knocking, he’d tried the door, more out of habit than of expecting the thing to be open. But it had been. The brass had turned in his hand and he had heard the click as the latch slid out pushing the door open a tiny crack.

He double-checked the cast iron numbers nailed onto the front of the door. _Forty-six_. No, that was right, this _was_ Ianto’s flat. He had never been inside, but he had picked Ianto up from the curb a number of times on the way to various crime scenes. Distinctly remembered the spiky purple plant next to the door because it was shaped like something rude and Ianto had rolled his eyes and silently buckled his seat belt when Jack had leered about it that one time.

This was definitely where Ianto lived.

So why was the door _unlocked_.

Jack hesitated, listening, sensing. Nothing felt wrong, despite the hairs rising on the back of his neck. He nudged the door open with the tip of his boot, his right hand straying closer to the gun at his hip, just in case.

The entryway was dimmed and it didn’t look like there were any lights on further inside.

“Ianto?” Jack called tentatively into the darkened space.

No response. He stepped inside and was assaulted by stale, sour air. Somehow, that unnerved him more than the unlocked door. 

Moving down the short hall he glanced into the adjoining rooms. A loungeroom on the left. No Ianto. Kitchen on the right. Still no Ianto. Something niggled at the back of his mind, demanding attention. Briefly he wondered if Ianto had finally run off; left them and his nightmares in Cardiff. It didn’t seem Ianto’s style. Although how well he really knew Ianto was the question of the hour.

The door at the end of corridor was slightly ajar. He pushed it open with his fingertips. Bedroom. And, he noted with more relief than he’d acknowledge to himself, Ianto. Well, he assumed the lump in the middle covered by sheets and quilts was Ianto. 

Quietly, Jack slipped over to the bed. The lump was rising and falling evenly, so at least he knew Ianto was still breathing. A good sign, all in all. A hand extended slightly out from under the covers clutching a fistful of the sheets in a tight death grip. Jack sighed at the raw red scratch that extended down the back of Ianto’s hand and presumably continued along wrist and arm.

Satisfied that Ianto wasn’t dead, hadn’t been abducted or done a runner, Jack backed quietly out of the room, pulling the door almost closed behind him. It was only when he turned to face the small flat that he realized what had been making him uneasy. Coming in, on guard and searching out Ianto, he hadn’t taken in much of what he was seeing.

The place was in disarray. No, not just disarray, he amended as he really started taking it in, it was _dirty_. 

Sweaters and t-shirts were draped haphazardly over the arms of the lounge. Jeans and socks in crumpled puddles on the floor where they had been unceremoniously kicked off. The jeweled tones of shirts Jack recognized from long days working when Ianto had ended up in sleeves and waistcoat, a distracting splash of colour that drew Jack’s gaze whenever Ianto had moved.

There were rings splattered over the glass of the coffee-table. Unsurprisingly there were also the accompanying sticky coffee cups. 

Wandering, somewhat dazedly, into the kitchen Jack found a similar scene. Plates and cups and empty take out containers. He couldn’t bring himself to open the fridge. There was too much mess for the explanation to have been that the last few days of suspension and mourning had overcome Ianto’s normal cleanliness.

The trash-bin was starting to overflow; crisp packets littering the floor around it like fluorescent leaves of foliage, fallen from some deciduous junk tree. Unopened mail threatened to topple off the small wooden table. Each discovery made Jack feel worse, his chest tightening into a palpatory _gaspshudderstop_. 

_I clear up your shit_ , Ianto had spat at them, at him. But it seemed there was no one to pick up after Ianto. 

_Of course there wasn’t_ , Jack growled at himself. Ianto had been right. He hadn’t once thought about what Ianto’s life might have been like, let alone _asked_ him about it. It wasn’t like he asked the rest of the team about their lives, he tried to rationalize to himself. But he knew it wasn’t the same. 

Gwen had Rhys. Owen had issues, but a social life all the same; warm bodies to spend nights with, to make life keep ticking over. Tosh, well he knew she was lonely, but she also shimmered brilliantly strong underneath. She valued her privacy, and certainly wouldn’t want him prying into her carefully constructed personal haven. But Ianto…He really had no idea about Ianto. Had never heard him mention any family, didn’t really see him out socializing with gads of friends, or constantly on the pull like Owen. Knew he didn’t have Lisa anymore. Or had thought he had known…

He went back into the bedroom, trying to quell the impending sense of doom that was roiling in his stomach. Opening a wardrobe door, with a glance back at the bed to check Ianto was still asleep, Jack found a row of suits, hanging in dry-cleaner bag shrouds. Pressed shirts and colour-coded ties. Polished pairs of shoes sat on the dirty cream carpet below next to an open shoebox of brushes and polish. Jack tried not to imagine Ianto sitting in the dirt and chaos of the apartment in an immaculate suit, brushing and polishing, making sure his shoes shone and gleamed. For him.

There was a small bathroom off to the side of the bedroom and he found that he couldn’t not look inside, the train wreck of Ianto’s life pulling him in, making him see and imprint itself on his mind’s eye. The bathroom was also in chaos. _Well okay_ , Jack reasoned, _chaos might be a bit strong_ , it wasn’t anything more than would be found in an average college dorm room, and probably less really. But for Ianto, the piles of sodden towels piling up on the floor to one wall and crumpled clothing smelling of moldy water in the corner might as well be considered chaos.

Jack kicked the piles of towels to the side with his boot, winced at the scent of iron that was jostled out from within the folds.

A toothbrush lay on the sink, milky white water-spit dried around it in a chalky halo. A cheap plastic razor, beginning to rust from the splashes of water it was left in. Black clippings of facial hair had dried onto the sides of the basin where Ianto hadn’t bothered to rinse after shaving. This was not the Ianto they knew.

But maybe they didn’t know Ianto. Perhaps it had all been part of the _game_. Jack shook his head in annoyance. ‘Game’ wasn’t fair. For all that the planning and scheming had brought horror on them all, it was anything but a game for Ianto. It had been love. Life. Misery. Heartbreak.

He stared down at the dark water-muted towels with a frown. Could all that fastidiousness, the obsessive cleaning, sorting and ordering have been deception? Could a person flit so easily between nature and need on cue? Could Ianto?

In a cupboard he found a large medical kit, presumably for Lisa. Inside are little compartments and everything is neatly separated and labeled. Bandages are rolled up and fastened. Safety pins fastened closed. Jack wanted to believe this was proof that Ianto really is who his actions had projected. That he really was meticulous and careful and compartmentalized. But a sneaking whisper in his mind goaded him, that maybe Ianto was only ever clean and meticulous when it came to Lisa. 

Caring for her. Covering for her. Only applying care to the things that needed to be done in order to reach the end of an endless horror.

The alternative was that they had broken him, that he really was caring and neat and unerringly considerate, and that Torchwood had abused that. Had ignored the desperation in favor of unending coffee and shameless flirting; not noticed Ianto slipping away during the days, staying late at night in the bowels of the hub, arriving at work early with dark circles under his eyes. Missed the opportunities presented to find out what Ianto needed. To find out about the dark secret in the basement that was eating him alive. 

Back in the darkened bedroom Jack’s gaze lingered on the sleeping form huddled under the protective covers. Jack carefully sat down on the edge of the bed. Ianto didn’t stir.

He picked up the sheet-clutching hand gently and pried the cotton from its grasp. Turned his hand over and slipped Ianto’s fingers into his palm. He let his thumb rub up and down the scratch at his wrist, such a horrible slight on the pale skin. 

Was Ianto really so different a person than he had thought he was? And if he was, how were they going to move forward from this. Because Jack already knew he wanted Ianto back; knew that he needed him back. Selfish as it was, he wasn’t ready to part with this one. If only there was a kernel of truth to the Ianto he knew, a glimmer of real Ianto inside the deception and subterfuge. The glimmer that Jack had wanted to catch and trap like a firefly in a jar to keep for himself, forever.

“Do you even like coffee, Ianto?” he murmured softly, tinged with regret.

The hitch in the rhythmic ebb and flow of Ianto’s breathing signaled his return to consciousness. His hand jerked slightly in Jack’s grasp, but he didn’t pull away. _Small miracles_ , Jack thought.

“Jack?” Ianto’s voice was hoarse and muffled by the blankets.

“Yes, Ianto. It’s me.” He squeezed Ianto’s hand lightly.

“Okay.” Ianto replied, said nothing else, made no effort to move.

“Go back to sleep. I’m gonna stick around a bit, if that’s okay?”

Jack took the mumbled grunt as an affirmative and tucked Ianto’s hand under the covers as he stood up

Closing the door to the bedroom behind him, Jack went back to the lounge-room and began gathering dirty cups. Noting as he did that it was mostly coffee that was dried out in them. Well that was something.

He spent the next hour straightening Ianto’s apartment. He felt vaguely like a maid, minus the feathers and frilly apron that his inappropriate consciousness wanted to flirt with, and wondered if that was how Ianto felt every time he collected pizza boxes and filled black trash bags with their daily mess. Things would have to change when he came back.

He surveyed the now neatened apartment. The smell still lingered but at least it was clean. It made Jack feel better, as if Ianto and neatness together equated to some kind of normalcy. Even if said normalcy may have been illusion. Deep down, he didn’t think he was wrong about Ianto. This mess and deceit wasn’t really him. He had been through hell and back, and even if Jack wasn’t solely responsible, he had played his part in the breaking of Ianto Jones. Just like he had with Suzie.

At least with Ianto he still had a chance to pick up the pieces.


End file.
